


Long Nights, Daydreams

by 7_Magpies



Series: Shyan Song Fics [8]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Don't do it, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Meetings, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Ryan Bergara In Love, Shane Madej Being an Idiot, Smoking is bad, Song fic, Song: Strawberries and Cigarettes (Troye Sivan), this is just for the aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7_Magpies/pseuds/7_Magpies
Summary: "Ryan looked over at Shane again, and remembered what he had thought about at the location the night before. Every time he had ever considered kissing Shane had been at night. But there, on the balcony, smelling the chlorine from the pool two floors below and squinting against the reflected sunlight, Ryan couldn’t hide his feelings under the cover of 'people think weird shit at night;'He wanted to kiss his best friend.Dammit."-----This is a song fic based on "Strawberries and Cigarettes." It is a one shot and unrelated to previous fics in this series.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara & Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Series: Shyan Song Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857880
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76





	Long Nights, Daydreams

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! I love love love this song and have been trying to think of ways to incorporate it into a fic for a long time. I only used the first part of it because it becomes more of a breakup song later on and only good vibes here! (for this fic at least)
> 
> Edit: I changed the summary of this to a quote from the fic because the original summary was kind of atrocious

_ “Remember when we first met? _

_ You said ‘light my cigarette.’  _

_ So I lied to my mom and dad, _

_ I jumped the fence and I ran.” _

Ryan thinks back to his first day at Buzzfeed. He was eating lunch outside by himself when someone walked up beside him.

He looked up to see a tall man. “I’m Shane,” he said, putting his hand out to shake. “I’m interning here.”

“Me too. I’m Ryan.” He shook his hand, and Shane sat beside him. 

“Mind if I smoke?” Shane asked. “It’s fine if not, I just… nerves, y’know?”

“Go on ahead.” Ryan never tried smoking, but several guys in his frat did.

Shane took out a pack of cigarettes and tried to light one, but the Zippo didn’t quite work. “Dammit.”

Ryan smiled and reached over to take the lighter. “Let me try, your hands are shaky.” 

The lighter flared and Ryan smiled smugly, a little proud of himself.

“Thanks. Light my cigarette?” 

Ryan reached over and held the lighter to the end of the cigarette in Shane’s mouth. It felt like those old movies where the guy lights the woman’s cigarette, or at least, that’s what came to his mind. “You know those things are bad for you, right?”

The man just shrugged. “I’m tall, so I’m probably gonna die young anyways. Might as well have some fun, right?”

Ryan laughed, and felt his phone vibrate. “Wait just a second, sorry, it’s my mom. She’s gonna want to hear about my first day. You know how moms are.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna call mine as soon as I get back to my place. Go ahead,” he added with a point at Ryan’s cell phone.

Ryan stood and walked a little ways away. “Hey, mom… Yes, it’s going well…” He looked over to where Shane was sitting, smoking and writing something in a notebook. “No, I’ve not met anyone special yet, give me a break,” he said with mock exasperation. “See you this weekend. Love you too.”

The rest of the work day went mostly uneventful - at least, as uneventful as it gets around Buzzfeed. At one point, Ryan realized he’d left his laptop charger in his car and tried to retrieve it, but on his way back, the gate was closed. 

“You’ll have to jump the fence,” came a familiar voice. Ryan turned to see Shane walking up beside him. “Had to put my cigarettes away. I forgot the gate only opens from the inside. If you can hop the fence, you can let us both in.”

Ryan looked up at him incredulously. “This fence has to be six feet tall. There’s no way I can climb it.”

“I’ll give you a leg up.” 

Ryan looked from the top of the fence to Shane a few times. “Why not.”

Shane got on one knee and laced his fingers together. Ryan stepped in them and Shane stood slowly, pushing Ryan up and over the fence. 

The smaller man hit the ground on the other side with an “oof!” and stood bent over with his hands on his knees for a moment. 

“You alright there, man?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” He straightened up and opened the gate. “No one hears a word of this. Let’s get back to the office.”

_ “But we couldn’t go very far _

_ ‘Cause you locked  _

_ Your keys in your car _

_ So you sat and stared at my lips _

_ And I could already feel your kiss.” _

Ryan thinks of that first day at Buzzfeed as he sits on the bench outside of the pizza place, watching Shane pace around talking on his phone. He’s got a cigarette in one hand, and his phone in the other. 

Shane doesn’t smoke much anymore. Just when he gets anxious. It’s a tell Ryan has learned over the years. It makes him feel a little better to see this physical manifestation of Shane’s discomfort because he always seems to be Mr. Calm-Cool-and-Collected. 

After a few moments, Shane sits beside Ryan on the bench. “Apparently Triple-A will need fifteen minutes to get here.”

“That’s not too bad,” Ryan reasoned. 

“I guess not.” Shane took a long draw on the cigarette. “I just feel so stupid. Who the hell licks their keys in their car? It’s amateur hour over here.” He ran long fingers through his hair, making it stand up in all different directions. 

Ryan wanted to run his own fingers through it. It was irrational, but wasn’t everything else he did? He settled for leaning back on the bench and turning to face his friend. “Don’t sweat it, big guy. At least we have pizza,” he said with a gesture to the box on his other side. 

“This is true.” Shane looked over at Ryan, his trademark Sad Eyes soft in the evening light. Between the dark sky and the fading light above their bench and the warm glow of the cigarette in his fingers, Shane’s face was painted with shadows.The lights brought out his cheekbones and shadowed his jawline, and the overall effect, combined with the occasional hit of second hand smoke, was intoxicating. 

_ I wonder what his lips feel like _ , Ryan thought.  _ Are they soft or rough? _

Before he could do anything to find out, Shane’s phone rang. He checked the screen. “Hold on a sec, it’s Triple-A.” He stood and answered the phone, and Ryan watched him, still thinking about his lips. 

_ “Long nights, day dreams, _

_ Sugar and smoke rings, _

_ I’ve been a fool.  _

_ But strawberries and cigarettes _

_ Always taste like you.”  _

Ryan hates the fact that his job means he sometimes stays overnight in haunted houses.This fact is improved, however, by the company he gets to keep on these excursions. 

They were in another haunted prison -  _ what kind of mistakes did I make that the phrase “another haunted prison” applies to me? _ \- and sleeping in a nasty hallway. The wind was blowing outside, and it made him think he heard a footstep every few minutes. 

Shane, remarkably, fell back into a deep sleep between each time Ryan woke him up with a new sound. “Go back to sleep, Ry,” he murmured sleepily, rolling over in his sleeping bag.

“Yeah. ‘Back’ to sleep,” Ryan muttered, burrowing further in his own bag and sliding it closer to Shane’s. The taller man’s presence was always a calming factor on him, and he’d never been too proud to admit it. 

Ryan looked over at his friend’s face, already relaxed in sleep again. “You are inhuman,” he said to himself, knowing the camera would probably pick it up.

In sleep, Shane looked younger. His eyes weren’t as crinkled with crow’s feet, and the darkness worked to soften his angular features. Ryan wondered, not for this first time, what Shane’s hair would feel like under his fingers. He’d touched it before, trying to get rid of a cobweb, but hadn’t paid as much attention to the sensation as he’d have liked. He imagined running his hand through Shane’s dark hair, and realized that he was daydreaming -  _ is it still daydreaming at one am?  _ \- about his best friend. 

It was going to be a long damn night.

The next morning, Shane and Ryan went back to the hotel and helped themselves to the Continental breakfast, since they had stayed there the night before and were, technically, guests. Shane made himself a truly terrifying looking waffle with strawberry syrup and fruits on top. Ryan opted for some oatmeal, still too groggy from his sleepless night to even think about food. 

He ate slowly, humming when appropriate to Shane, who was wide awake and telling some anecdote Ryan had heard a dozen times before. 

“You alright, man?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah. I’m good.” He yawned and stretched his arms over his head. “When’s our flight?”

Shane looked up to his face from where his gaze had been locked on the sliver of tan skin exposed by his stretch. “What? Oh - flight - not until two, I think.”

“Excellent. I’m gonna head up to the room and try to get some sleep.”

Shane nodded. “Probably a good idea. You look like shit, man.”

Ryan huffed a laugh. “Gee. Thanks.”

When they reached their shared hotel room, Ryan collapsed on the bed closest to the door with no preamble. “Don’t wake me until it’s time to go.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

A few hours later, Ryan woke up. His eyes were still bleary from the midday nap when he walked out onto the balcony.

“It’s alive!” Shane said in a dramatic fashion. He was sitting back in a patio chair, his long legs kicked up onto the railing of the balcony, with a cigarette in his hand.

“Isn’t this a no-smoking room?”

“Which is why I’m outside,” Shane said with a wink before taking a long drag. 

Ryan rolled his eyes and sat in the decrepit plastic chair beside him. 

“Nice nap?”

He just hummed in affirmation, looking out at the trees and quiet road beyond the hotel’s property. 

“That’s good. Don’t wanna be crammed on a flight with you if you were sleepy.”

Ryan looked over at Shane again, and remembered what he had thought about at the location the night before. Every time he had ever considered kissing Shane had been at night. But there, on the balcony, smelling the chlorine from the pool two floors below and squinting against the reflected sunlight, Ryan couldn’t hide his feelings under the cover of “people think weird shit at night;”

He wanted to kiss his best friend. 

Dammit.

“Ryan?”

It finally dawned on Ryan that Shane had said something, and then tried to get his attention.

“Sorry, what was that? Must’ve dazed out.’

“I’ll say,” Shane said with a lopsided smile. “I was just saying that I think the ghosts at the location were taken with you.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, they only replied to your questions on the Spirit Box -”

“Like always,” Ryan pointed out. “They sense that you’re too full of horseshit to even try and talk to.”

“Whatever. Anyways. Only talked to you, and you seemed pretty sure you heard the Demon Noise Box say something about ‘kiss,’ right?”

Ryan rubbed the back of his neck, not liking how this conversation was starting to mirror what was in his own head. “I mean, who knows, ‘kiss’ is a hard word to pick up over static. It could’ve been ‘miss.’”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure a ghost prisoner is talking about how much he misses prison food,” Shane said with a scoff. 

“You don’t even believe in the Spirit Box!”

“You do! Why are you trying to discount it this time?”

Ryan stopped, knowing he had to think about how he responded carefully. “I’m… I’m not trying to discount it. I’m just acknowledging that I will have to listen to the recording and figure out exactly what it was trying to tell us.”

“I think it was trying to tell us it  _ liiiiikes _ you,” Shane said with a mischievous smile.

“You don’t even think ghosts exist.”

“I will make ghost jokes if they make you squirm, you know this.”

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t think the ghosts  _ like _ me. What are you, a middle schooler?”

“I am whatever makes the bit work.”

“This bit is not working.”

The taller man rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Come on, I’m sure the ghost is a nice guy. Aside from, y’know, whatever he did to get himself in prison.”

“Shane, this isn’t  _ Ghost, _ and I doubt Mr. Ghost Prisoner looked like Patrick Swayze, and if you even think about saying the word ‘pottery’ I will throw you into that damn swimming pool.”

Shane laughed, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying! You could probably do worse than Mr. Ghost Prisoner!”

“I could probably do better!”

“I mean, naturally, since Mr. Ghost Prisoner doesn’t even exist.”

Ryan groaned, but felt himself smile despite his best efforts. “Pick a side, dude. Do they exist in this bit or not?”

“Look, man, I’m just saying that it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that, if ghosts were to exist, one would be attracted to you.”

The smaller man felt his face go warmer than the comment had strictly warranted. “Thanks, I think?” he said in an attempted casual tone, hoping Shane wouldn’t notice. “So, what’s going on with you?”

“Hm?” He looked confused, frowning up at Ryan. 

Ryan gestured to the cigarette in his hand. “You only smoke when you’re anxious.”

“That’s not true.”

Ryan just raised an eyebrow. “Spill.”

Shane sighed and took a last drag. “I’m just… I’ve just got stuff in my head is all.”

“Did the location last night freak you out?”

He scoffed. “You know it didn’t.”

“Well then what is it? You know you can talk to me, Shane.”

Shane just shook his head. “Not on this, Ry-guy,” he said, and his voice seemed almost sad. 

Ryan knew that, as a friend, this is where he was expected to step back. To let Shane know he was there if he changed his mind.

Ryan sucked at that.

“Is it a girl?”

Shane groaned. “No, Ryan. It isn’t a girl. Drop it, okay?”

“... is it a guy? Are you bi?”

The taller man stood and leaned over the balcony, not looking at Ryan. “Yes,” he said eventually in a small voice.

“Which part? Both?”

“Yeah. Look, if that makes you uncomfortable, I get it, I promise I-”

Ryan stood and put a gentle hand on Shane’s back, stopping his babbling in its tracks. “Dude, me too. It’s okay.”

Shane turned to look at him, as though trying to decide if he was making it up or not.

“I’m serious. I just never got around to telling you because I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I knew you wouldn’t care, but-” he realized, distantly, that he was babbling now. “What I’m trying to say is that you can talk to me.”

He still shook his head. “Not about this guy.”

Ryan felt the beginnings of a hypothesis forming in his mind and decided to test it. He stepped forward slowly -  _ this is just for science, definitely not because I want to  _ \- and closed into Shane’s space. 

The two of them had never been incredibly touchy friends. So when Ryan entered Shane’s space, the taller man took notice, and Ryan noted his Adam’s apple bob when he gulped. “Ryan?” he asked in an unsure voice.

“Why can’t you tell me about this guy?” Ryan asked softly. 

“Ryan,” he said, his voice almost pleading. “Don’t.”

“What if I want to?” 

Shane didn’t seem to know how to answer that.

Ryan didn’t know who initiated the contact, but the kiss was…  _ good. _ Shane’s lips tasted like the sweet strawberry syrup from his waffles that morning and tobacco from his cigarette, and Ryan had to crane his neck up to maintain the kiss, but the slight pain helped him stay grounded and aware that this was  _ real _ and this was  _ happening _ and Shane’s lips were as soft as he had imagined and his hair, too, and suddenly Shane had pulled back and Ryan’s hands were still in midair from where they had been tangled in his hair.

“Ryan, I can’t - we can’t just kiss and then we not talk about it, okay? I’ve wanted this for too long. I can’t just have you kiss me just to prove whatever point you’re trying to make or find out whatever it is you’re trying to find out, and then we keep going about our lives as though nothing happened.” His voice was almost frantic, and he was about as shaken as Ryan had ever seen.

“I know.”

“You - what do you mean - what do you mean you know?” 

“I mean I know. I’ve wanted that too. I’ve just… I thought you were straight, and also I was in denial. I thought it was just me being curious because we spend so much time together…”

Shane seemed to finally begin to understand. “So… can I kiss you again?”

Ryan nodded, and Shane did.

**Author's Note:**

> So what did you think? Be sure to let me know! 
> 
> And if you liked this, be sure to check out the other works in this series. I'm pretty proud of some of them!
> 
> Edit: Yo if one of you art-y people wants to draw Ryan lighting a cigarette for Shane and let me know I would love you forever, I’m just throwing that out there, ‘cause ya girl CANNOT draw


End file.
